Had hardwoods and crown moulding
I thought I could afford. I signed the lease,
sick of driving everything I owned
down every street, a stack of scratched-out Greensheets
like a ledger of the city’s mildewed
studios & flimsy gates, each backyard
bungalow adrift in weeds. In one, new glass
in a window overlooked a sagging fence,
chain-link wrapped with kudzu from the wooded lot
behind. The landlord’s sheepish grin.
I told the first lie of my rental history:
I’d think about it. On Sul Ross, 1827
sat high above the street, above the flood
that took out half the block last spring.
The landlord’s wife showed me the ornate scrolls
that made the windows safe. Deadbolts,
front & rear. A church across the street.
The price that one must pay. I moved right in.
By winter, they’d turned off the heat.
I could barely pay the rent. Mrs. Pimlott changed
the locks. I moved in with a friend.
When I walked by in spring the guy next door
wondered where I’d been & had I heard
about the tenant after me?
She’d been raped & beaten in her bed.
Such mercy in regret: that I lived